Palantir Stock Could Swing 11% Tonight Even With a $1.9 Billion Beat

Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) reports its second-quarter results after the US market closes on Monday. Wall Street expects revenue of about $1.81 billion and adjusted profit near 34 cents a share.

Palantir usually does better than that. Its own record points to roughly $1.9 billion. Yet options traders are braced for an 11% move either way.

The Forecast Matters More Than the Palantir Q2 Earnings Beat

Palantir told investors to expect between $1.797 billion and $1.801 billion. That is only 10% more than it made last quarter.

It would be the slowest step up in a year. Revenue climbed 18%, then 19%, then 16% in the three quarters before this one.

The company also has a habit of beating its own forecast. It landed 5.7% above the top end in the fourth quarter. It did it again in the first, by 6.3%.

Repeat that and revenue reaches about $1.91 billion. That is roughly $100 million more than Wall Street expects.

The bigger number is the full-year one. Palantir lifted its 2026 revenue guidance in May to between $7.650 billion and $7.662 billion. That was ten points above the growth rate it gave in February.

To reach the middle of that range, Palantir needs about $4.22 billion in the second half. That works out to $2.11 billion a quarter. Growth has to speed up, not level off.

A beat may still not be enough. Palantir beat and raised in May. The stock dropped more than 6% the next day anyway, closing near $136 from about $146.

“Valuation is part of it,” Adam Coons, chief investment officer at Winthrop Capital, said in May.

He pointed to OpenAI and Anthropic chipping away at Palantir’s future value.

Traders are paying for cover both ways. Investors did the same to Apple’s record June quarter last week.

Business Customers Still Trail the Government

Palantir’s US commercial arm made $595 million last quarter. That was 133% more than a year earlier.

Its US government arm made $687 million, up 84%. Government is still the bigger half.

The gap between them actually grew. Government led by $63 million at the end of 2025. Three months later it led by $92 million.

Forecasts for this quarter put commercial near $717 million and government near $733 million. A flip would ease the government contract risk that knocked the stock in July.

Palantir has promised at least $3.224 billion of commercial revenue in 2026. That needs roughly $876 million a quarter from here. Last quarter it managed $595 million.

One warning light is already on. Palantir tracks the value of signed work it has not yet booked as revenue. That figure grew 30% in the third quarter of last year, then 21%, then 12%.

Both of Palantir’s growth measures have slowed for three straight quarters. Source: BeInCrypto

Overseas is the weak spot. Foreign sales were about $351 million, or a fifth of the total. They grew 37%. US sales grew 104%.

Palantir Stock Has Almost No Room for Error

The shares closed Friday at $123.06 and traded near $125.38 on Monday morning. That is 41% below the 12-month high of $207.52.

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance

The fall has not made the stock cheap. With about 2.40 billion shares, Palantir was worth roughly $302 billion on Monday. Investors are paying close to $39 for every $1 of revenue the company expects this year.

Analysts still see plenty of upside. The average target from 32 of them is $182.20, some 48% above Friday’s close. That gap is the AI valuation argument in a single number.

Options traders are pricing a move of about 11% in either direction. That is what it costs to bet on a swing by Friday, roughly $14 against a $123 share price. That is what it costs to bet on a swing by Friday.

The green line marks the top of the range options traders expect, near $138. The red line marks the bottom, near $114. The figures along the bottom show what actually happened after the last four reports, all of them under 8%.

Palantir’s expected post-earnings range against its actual moves over the past four quarters. Source: Barchart

Palantir rarely moves that much. Its last four reports produced swings of 7.85%, 7.94%, 6.85% and 6.93%. The average is 7.39%.

So traders are paying for about half again as much movement as the stock has actually delivered. Implied volatility sits at 68.62% against a historic reading of 55.49%.

Profit is the other test. Palantir’s forecast points to a 59.2% margin on its core operations. It hit 60% last quarter. Even a small slip would feed the bears.

Alex Karp raised the bar once this year, back in May. Whether he raises it again, with signed-work growth down to 12%, will set the tone on Tuesday.

Read the article at BeInCrypto